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Saturday, June 20, 2015

Fabric Painting - Part 2

Well this is a flight of fancy that's completely taken over my sewing time! *smile* However, it's creatively stimulating and stretching me in new directions. Also it gives me time to figure out exactly what I want to sew next...First, I bought more paint brushes...I found that I needed a thick one to generally apply the dye to the fabric and a thinner one to fill in the borders and smaller spaces ~ basically two paintbrushes per color. So I've ended up with a collection of new brushes...

I also bought more paint...Not more shades (well one more pot of green) but a large pot of white paint to mix colors. I also bought a couple fabric markers. Though when I tried one on the fabric I didn't like how it worked. I just liked how the paint using the paintbrush applies to the fabric much better so I won't be using the fabric markers going forward.

A few things that I've learned/relearned along the way...Add white to any color and it makes it lighter or more pastel colored. I messed up at the beginning by trying to mix the white into the darker color. Didn't work so well and it takes some trial and error to get the lighter shades I see in my minds eye. So I've ended up with some interesting shades by doing this process.

White with a little blue mixed in

Adding a little more blue to get

a darker shade of blue

I had to figure out a color "design" for the fabric and make sure that I paint it that way every time...especially since the fabric has a repeat pattern in it.Mostly this just takes time...alot of time! I'm almost finished painting JUST the back piece, still have the two front pieces and the waistband to paint before I can assemble the skirt. Remarkably enough the dye hasn't changed the hand of the fabric which is good.A few pictures of the skirt's progress...

Just starting to paint the skirt back

Adding more color...

It's almost finished. Just need to add a little more

color so that there aren't quite as many white spaces.

I put a lot of paint on the skirt yesterday. Now it's hanging for 24 hours to dry so that I can see where I want to add the last of the color...plus I need a break. The painting is very detailed and I have to really pay attention to what I'm doing. Just wanted to give an update on the fabric painting progress....as always more later!

That looks fantastic,and I bet it is fun to do too. It shows you really "know" colour theory.......so were you taught or is it a natural talent? I don't have it and have to think a lot about how to do colour sometimes in clothes but more often in the garden. My plan that the garden looks like seed packets were thrown all over it is sometimes successful but can be a huge disaster.